Memorial weekend 2013

Started out the Holiday weekend by heading to Indianapolis to spend a few days with Jan's family. Wendi, our niece has a beautiful resort like home with her great husband Tadd & adorable daughter Samantha. The rest of the gang showed up as the weekend progressed. It was great seeing Jan's brother Bob, his wife Karen, our nephews Bob & Caroline, Tim, Eric & Monica, all with their wonderful fun loving kids. A good time was had by all; a bit of swimming, trampoline jumping, frisbee (champs fav), corn hole, wiffle ball, wine tree planting, some eating & of course alot of drinking. We enjoyed a camp fire with delicious smores with some sitting around that pit till 4:00 AM.

The wine tree, waiting to be filled

Wendi surprised us with a Bon Voyage cake, gosh was it good. We met Josh's girlfriend Melissa who is a real sweetlie.  Owen worked real hard mixing concrete for the wine tree that Bob & Caroline had commissioned by a sculptor  for Wendi. They only need to drink 42 more bottles of wine to complete it. For now they will decorate  it with beer bottles, knowing they can complete that by the end of the holiday. Lillian continues to amaze with her gymnastic moves & her double joints. Sam has mastered all kinds of flips on the tramp, so she will do fantastic in her new adventures with diving.  Both Sam & Lillian were helping Kaiden, Zachary & even Abigail learn new tricks on the trampoline. Bob & Karen sure are proud to have such a great family. Thank you Wendi for being the best hostess ever.

We left Wendi's, headed home, loaded the car & drove to the boat. Left
the dock on Sunday morn @ 9:00 AM; air temp was 56 & water temp 63.  The lake was calm & the sun was shining. We arrived @ MBI @ 1:00 PM, docking in Sonny's dock. Carrie had told us we could use the dock anytime because the SonnyS is now owned by Boardwalk @ the bay so it doesn't dock there anymore. That is sooooo nice of her! Thank you Carrie!! Carrie's dock is a stones throw away from Wendt's (formerly Wendt/Martin) cottage.  We had never docked there before, so Craig was kind enough to go out & depth it for us; 6 foot all along, we're in good shape because we draw 4.6 ft. There was a super welcoming committee to greet us @ the dock, of course, they all showed up after we were tied up. Craig was on the deck, not the dock waiting for us! Hugs all around & we were introduced to Em & Mo, who were visiting Cheryl,Craig & Paul. We gave a quick tour then made all a drink & we relaxed & visited in the sun on the bridge. Cheryl, Paul & Em weren't too thrilled to see what the sun & spring brings out on the docks: was it a frog or snake that made Cheryl scream? Jess had to head back to the mainland for a family picnic so Paul took her to the ferry.

The rest of us went to the cottage & sat on the deck & played the game "Things".  Paul came back, Em & Mo had to leave and we continued to play. On Saturday, Em was the victor, today Paul was the champion. We all enjoyed the pocket hose demo too.  What a fun game!  We laughed, we ate & we even had arts & crafts. Doug & Jan presented Jeri with her photo book that Jan created, as an early Birthday present & going away gift (remember no more tears). We're ready to go dancing with you, Sally anytime! Jerry O really tried to find the source of the noisy garbage disposal in the cottage, but to no avail. So what IS down there Cheryl? We all headed out early on Monday due to the rain & cooler weather & maybe a tad of a hangover.  Thanks everyone for a fantastic Holiday weekend! We will miss you all!!

Our Shake Down Cruise

We didn't make it over to PIB last weekend due to weather, so the forecast started out looking better for this weekend. Doug took half day off & we arrived @ the boat. Hmmm seems windier (is that a word?) than the forecast called for. Doug washed the boat & I stored more "stuff", amazing how it fits every week. I think I am going to hit my limit soon thou. We checked the forecast; east winds 15-20, waves 2-4 & subsiding in the evening & Sunday's forecast looks good. We know Day Dreams can handle 2-4's easy especially with our new stabilizers from last year.  Garry & Jacque stopped by to say goodbye, they were heading to the "hills" to spend the weekend with the grand kids & have a fun visit. So we left the dock, yahoo! On our way out we saw French Kiss is in the water @ her dock, looking pretty & we welcomed Linda home. We left the marina & the water looked like chocolate milk from the muddy Maumee-one thing I won't miss. It actually looked more like a milkshake because of the big waves. We were heading right into them, which is called "taking them on the nose" as Doug said. The waves were more like 3-5's, but now we are committed. After all this is a shake down cruise so we want to make sure everything works & is secure, what better way.  The water did clear as much as Lake Erie can & we didn't see any algae yet, but it did not calm down. We took a couple of 6 footers & lots of water over the bow. The weather data actually said we were in 28 mph winds with 32 mph gusts.  Day Dreams just chugged along & would set us down so easily instead of pounding. I remember pounding in the Sea Ray-man sometimes I thought my back would break. We were warm, dry, safe & secure in our pilot house. Doug did have to make a trip up to the bridge while under way; we are using our 2 coolers as dock boxes (recycling) and one of them loosened up a bit. 

We arrived @ PIB & there was only 1 sailboat on the mooring balls. We picked one & tied up. It was wavy in the bay, due to the high east winds. We did rock some all night, rocked us to sleep. The wind did not subside all night or on Saturday. We stayed on board & ate leftovers Friday nite & then Saturday we went on the island. Water taxis were running & a few more boats showed up as the day progressed. It was cool enough that we ran the furnace for awhile each evening when we put the generator on. We walked around the island to see what was new. The Dairy Queen is being remodeled & is now part of The Keys, which was new last year. I don't know what it will be when it is finished. They've added a mechanical bull to the outside terrace @ the smokehouse. We were entertained watching some drunk bachorlettes try to ride it. They are building a new mini hotel next to Tony's. Mojito bay was jumping. We visited the Whalen Studio & found a new artist who does pictures using aluminum. Steve Harlan-very impressive. The Round House has a new exterior paint job: patriotic. We ate upstairs @ The Boardwalk, so Doug could get the lobster bisque because this will be our only trip this summer to the bay. We found out that Boardwalk has wifi & nice showers available to those using the mooring balls; How many years have we been doing this? Here I always thought I knew all the ins & outs, I'm slipping. We ran into the Middle Bass ladies @ Tippers. We were all there to watch the horse race on the big screen. I bought a horse pick for $10.00, guess who came in last? Carrie Schneider, our neighbor on MBI, told us we could use her dock anytime we wanted to since the Sonny boat doesn't dock there anymore, very sweet of her & we probably will take her up on it next Sunday. Also found out that Tippers has awesome frozen Brandi Alexander's, just as good as The Pump on Kelly's Island. 

The winds finally changed directions late Saturday night & it calmed down in the bay. We had a beautiful ride home on Sunday: dead calm, warm even hot & hazy. Hardly any boats out. This was a bridge day. Our handheld mike didn't work, it may not be compatible with the new VHF radio Doug bought for the pilot house. Doug has to research that. Really enjoyed our ride home. Meanwhile @ the dock, Kevin & Andy put Current Affair in the water: they are going to sublet our dock while we are gone. Hopefully for them the boat will sell. Jim worked on Abigail, she's still in dry storage @ the beach. 

It's Time to Prepare

Weekend of May 10 ,2013

Since launch, we have stayed in the dock and worked in the cool, sometime rainy weather.  Day Dreams is all shiny & pretty. It only took us 3 days to wax this spring, all these years of practice have made us more efficient.  Doug ended up sending the new satellite weather module back, as possibly defective. Ray Marine sent him a new one. Doug has used Defender to buy all the new electronics, they've been pretty easy to work with. All of the new electronics were working as of last Monday, but yesterday we could not get weather radar from the satellite again-Doug was steamed. He sent a scathing email to Sirius figuring it had to be their problem, since it couldn't be the second weather module right?  Well in Doug's frustration he looked @ Ray Marine's website & what did he find, but a statement regarding the weather module having a problem & the techs are working on it. So Doug had done everything right, he does know what he's doing! 

We've had a few cocktail parties with Garry & Jacque and we were going to have dinner on Waterford last night but between the wind & cold freezing temperatures, Garry's grill was unable to stay warm enough to cook the steaks. Sand Bar had just opened @ the Marina, so we dined there. It's under new management with a pretty basic menu. The perch sandwich was pretty good. We were going to have a shakedown cruise to Put in Bay but the weather was not conducive for that adventure. We attended the annual Toledo Beach Marina & Dockiminium meeting. Jefferson Beach owns us & they continue working on the property to improve the docks. We own our dock #263 , we bought it back in 2005. The value of the docks have gone down due to the economy & past poor ownership & management but everything is now headed in the right direction. 

We continue to stock the boat, so far everything fits.  It's a challenge planning for long term cruising. Doug found a very useful app called: What's on my boat. It's great for inventory & remembering where I put something, well worth $1.99.  We had boat cards made with our blog & one of our email addresses printed on it. 

Wax on-Wax off

We began our normal summer routine on Friday, April 26th by moving onto the boat for the weekend and enjoying our first cocktail hour on board.  The weather has finally turned toward spring like conditions.  We still used the furnace Friday night & an extra blanket but Saturday was gorgeous.  While waxing all day Saturday, we actually were warm & changed into shorts for a bit.  We really made great progress on Saturday, completely waxing the entire bridge.  Friday's forecast for the weekend, gave us hope that we would be able to wax both Saturday & Sunday, but alas the forecast took a dramatic change & instead of sun & warmth on Sunday, we experienced cool temperatures & all day rain. Drat!!  How many people would be disappointed that they couldn't spend all day tiring out their muscles?

Saturday evening, we were fortunate to dine aboard, Waterford.   The four of us enjoyed a splendid dinner, both of us having contributed our share.  Jacque found some delicious fresh baby beets that Garry put on the grill for a LONG time, but boy was it worth it.  Jacque threw together a wonderful salad of fresh arugula, beets, avocado's & pine nuts with a tasty balsamic dressing.  As Doug told Garry & Jacque, he has "never had a bad meal on Waterford".   Shoot, I've never heard him say that about Day Dreams. :)

Although we were disappointed about the rain on Sunday, we did enjoy waking to the sound of soft rain drops, so much, that it lulled us back to sleep till almost 10:00 AM.  Doug then got busy & was able to get the AIS (identifies freighters) up and running, all he needed to do was to buy some more connections. The hot water tank needed a new valve, which Doug replaced and has ordered a new one with a higher release pressure of 100 instead of 75.  We'll see if that holds up longer. The Satellite weather module still wasn't working totally, so the experts decided it must be defective, so Doug was instructed to return it and the company was sending a new one to us.   There are always rainy day projects to work on and a good excuse to go shopping, which we did.

Today @ home, was another beautiful day, so we decided after dinner to try out our new foldable Kayak, called a Foldbot.

Isn't she pretty? 

The kayak, not the muddy Maumee River.  It took Doug about 40 minutes to assemble the kayak by himself and for the first time.  It is supposed to take about 20  minutes.  Doug is sure he will get more efficient and of course Jan will help from now on. 

Jan does paddle sometimes!!

The Kayak worked great & so did both of us! The paddles are light and the kayak really glides along nicely.  It is not tipsy and we both felt very safe & secure.  We can't wait to explore with it in Lake Superior!  Well, here's hoping for the continuation of this beautiful, now summer like weather.  Today was 84 degrees, the trees & flowers are all blooming and the grass is a lush green, just splendid!!